nowletsthink:

Hey there, faith-is-not-blind, I hope you don’t mind me stepping in. I couldn’t pass this one up.

You never asked my permission before; don’t suddenly start now.

My questions are usually a lot more critical, but I honestly don’t ask them to get an answer — I ask them to inspire doubt.

- xD This is golden. I want this framed.

This is childish.  Please behave.

Is this the mindset you’ve been having in our conversations? This superiority complex you seem to be exhibiting and this obdurate attitude are just shameful, and they won’t do you any good, you’ve got to engage your intellect.

That mindset hasn’t entered our conversations just yet.  We’ve been debating specific arguments. 

Obdurate?  I’m sorry, but that word doesn’t apply to an individual who actually changes his views.  Superior?  In the sense that I’m generally more educated and more intelligent than my opponents?  Sure.  However, that doesn’t give me a complex; to the contrary, I wouldn’t share my knowledge if I was so pompous.  Dwell on that for some time.

Also, if you want to hold a private definition of the word “faith” that holds it to be incompatible with reason, or necessarily excluding warrant, I guess that’s your prerogative, you could do that, but why on earth would you want to do that? This is not the mainstream historical Christian view on what faith is. Thoughtful Christians will recognize that you haven’t yet understood their position, and so this rhetoric will get you nowhere with them. (Not to mention that this understanding of faith also militates against most peoples’ everyday usage of the word.)

Faith is defined as belief without proof; in my experience, I’ve come to define it as belief regardless of evidence.  One could debunk creationism, the teleological argument or any other view/argument that bolsters Christianity and a Christian will obstinately march on as if no errors were pointed out.  Christians do not have the privilege of conveniently defining a term either based on the Bible or some theologian.  If observations aren’t consistent with their definitions, their definitions are invalidated.  That is exactly the case.  Observations are consistent with my definition.  I can drop every hominid fossil on a creationist’s table and they’ll continue to assert their belief regardless of the evidence; the same applies to an apologist like William Lane Craig who continues to use the same, refuted-too-many-times-to-count arguments.  Some, if not most, Christians are obdurate individuals and they have proven my definition of faith repeatedly.

For anyone who’s interested, check out Kiwi philosopher Dr. Glenn Peoples’ podcast on the nature of faith, he addresses some similar misconceptions of faith to the one espoused by our friend deconversionmovement.

One last thing: Rey, you might loathe the fact that the Bible contains verses like 1 Timothy 3:15, since they have led to something you dislike, namely the rational defense of a belief system you hate. However, it’s worth noting that a verse such as this serves to undermine any claim you might make to the effect that the Christian view of faith sets it in opposition to reason.

That’s 1 Peter 3:15.  Any verse, any person or anything that encourages apologetics is something I’m opposed to; that’s not going to change.  Apologetics is perpetual ignorance — a composite of cons who abuse the gullibility of the less informed and highly pious.  I have absolutely no respect for modern apologetics.  Deal with it.

On a personal note:  you’re starting to remind me of a few persistent Christians from my earlier days on Tumblr, and I don’t mean that as a compliment.  Things you have in common:  obsessively devoting post after post after post in response to my posts.  The glaring difference:  you actually started a blog in order to heckle me.  If you think that your constant distractions will deter me, think again.  If you think your constant heckling will annoy me or get me angry, think again.  I have a lot of patience; come on, I’ve experienced this before.  Fair warning:  it never ends well for my opponents.